


make me cry

by muppetstiefel



Series: nothing new about this rage [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Canonical Character Death, Drug Abuse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Mental Breakdown, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:49:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18836515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "Number Six already knows who he wants to wrap up in bubble wrap and protect from the world. Four is loud and giddy and he makes Six feel dizzy. But he’s also soft, and he lends Six comic books and listens to his ridiculous theories about why they’re so special."Ben spent most of his life watching Klaus spiral out of control. He seems to be spending most of his death doing the same.





	make me cry

Ben thinks if he had to use one trait to describe himself, it would be hopeless.

From the beginning he was always destined to be a hopeless case, a splotch on the universe. He was always meant to die. His life was a bomb, slowly counting down the days, months and years till his inevitable explosion. His siblings were always meant to be his collateral damage.

Which meant that Ben was always rendered useless. This feeling seemed to seep into his life before he even knew why it had to be that way. He always felt the sensation of hot syrup, pulling him down, and his words seemed to fall silent to his siblings.

Ben got used to being the quietest one pretty quickly. He got used to sitting in silence and absorbing the conversations whirling around him- conversations he couldn’t really be a part of.

But sometimes he wished he didn’t feel so useless. When his sound arguments fall on deaf ears, when his siblings ignore his advice like he never said anything, when no-one will answer his questions, he wishes for once in his life that he could be heard. That he could make an impact. Sometimes he wishes he could help just one person. That would be enough.

At the age of eight, when they’re still nothing but a mark on a tally sheet, Number Six already knows who he wants to wrap up in bubble wrap and protect from the world. Four is loud and giddy and he makes Six feel dizzy. But he’s also soft, and he lends Six comic books and listens to his ridiculous theories about why they’re so special. Number Four never makes him feel little, even though Six knows he’s much less mature and much smaller than his higher ranking brother.

But even when they’re together, stealing handfuls of cereal at midnight and swapping adventure stories, Six still feels Four floating away from him. His eyes glaze over sometimes, and he often falls half out of the conversation and half into another with someone Six can’t see.

Four cries, sobs, weeps when he thinks Six can’t see him. He scrapes at his arms with his blunt nails, tearing at the skin. Six wishes he didn’t feel so hopeless, that he could reach out but he knows, he knows, any attempt would be in vain. He doesn’t want Four to shut the doors and shut him out so instead he watches, helpless, and does nothing. He doesn’t do anything.

They’re nine the first time that Four snaps. It’s one in the morning, and Six in huddled under his blanket, torch balanced on his knee and book propped open in his lap. He flinches when the silence is penetrated with the sound of glass, smashing against a wall. Six rubs at his bleary eyes and tucks the book away, pulling himself off the bed.

As he enters the hallway the sound wafts up the staircase. He pauses, frowning, and tries to peer down. All he sees is darkness. All he hears is the sound of glass shattering. And someone screaming. 

He isn’t the only one of the Hargreeves in the hallway now. Number Five is stood, not quite next to him, but loitering just by his own door. 

Six questions him, voice no more than a whisper. It almost gets lost among the sound of shattering glass and the hollow thud of pottery splitting in two. “Five? What’s happening?”

But Five just shrugs and Six can’t wait any longer to find out so he starts down the stairs cautiously. Five follows him. The sound only seems to grow as they descend in total silence.

At the base of the stairs all is revealed. Number Four, mouth open in mimic of a scream that seems to have died, stands with a glass raised in his hand, which he then hurls at the ground. Six flinches, takes a step. He can hear his father shouting from where he stands at a safe distance from Number Four, a constant stream of anger, the words of which Six cannot make out. He just stares at his brother, now picking up the shards of glass from the floor which rip at his skin. 

It feels like they’re stood on the stairs forever, Numbers Five and Six, side by side and staring. But it can’t be more than a few minutes before their father sees them.

“Number Five. Number Six. Go back to bed immediately.” When they don’t move at all, Reginald repeats, “Immediately!” his voice booming. 

Six wants to refuse, wants to step forward and calm his brother down before he hurts himself. He wants to brush him off and dry his tears and put him to bed. To hold him and tell him that he will never feel like this again.

Instead he turns and scamper up the stairs after Five, leaving the bleeding and broken Number Four behind.

And when Four arrives at the breakfast table the next morning, his eyes are bloodshot and his hands covered in plasters. He doesn’t look at anyone.

Six never sees him that upset again. At least, not for a long time. Number Four cultivates himself a mask, a barrier between his trauma and what he shows to his family. To everyone else, he builds a wall to make himself seem stronger. To Six, it looks like a prison he built for himself.

He doesn’t share secrets anymore, doesn’t cry to Six when he feels scared. But he still invites him to his room, still swaps comic books with him, still calls Six his best friend. And that’s enough.

They’re 11 and ¾ and at the age where that really matters when Klaus runs away from home. Six can’t sleep so he’s in the kitchen getting himself a glass of water when he hears it. The familiar sound of shoes on the hard wood floor. The creak of certain floorboard. The click of the door lock. Six sets the full glass down and goes to investigate, avoiding the dodgy spots of flooring. 

And its Number Four, turning the door handle and swinging open the front door of the academy.

“What are you doing?” Number Six asks, voice stark in the silence of the reception.

Four jumps, startled, and turns around to Six, shushing him. Then he whispers, “I’m just going out for the night.”

Six frowns, looking at the stuffed rucksack on the other boys back. “For the night?”

“Yeah, just for the night,” he nods hurriedly, shifting slightly.

Six pauses. Then, “can I come with you?”

“What?”

“If it’s just for the night then… I can come with you. We can go exploring like we always said we would. Go to the park. Get doughnuts like Five and Seven do sometimes!” he beams at his brother, scanning the hallway for his shoes.

Four shakes his head, backing up towards the door slightly, “Six, this was gonna be more of a solo mission…”

His face falls, realisation dawning on him. “You’re running away!”

“Six, shut up!”

“Why can’t I come with you? I’m very resourceful, I can help carry the bag!”

“Six, be quiet-”

“Where were you planning on going? I know, we’ll buy a map-” He grins, grabbing his coat from the hook and pulling three others down with it.

“Six, you can’t come!” Four whisper-shouts, fists clenched by his side and teeth gritted.

Six face falls, and he takes a step back like he’s been shot. He nods, tries hard not to cry and turns away from his brother.

Something in Four’s tone softens and he puts his hand on Six’s shoulder gently. “I’ll come get you. In a little bit. You just can’t come right away.”

Six runs back upstairs and to the safety of his bed before he can hear anything else.

Four is gone for a week before he is finally hauled back to the academy by a policeman. Six watches through the stairs as Reginald berates him and Grace hugs him close to her. After about ten minutes Pogo tries to give him something to eat but their father stops him.

And all the while four just sits there, smiling serenely, eyes glazed over and mind somewhere else. Six can feel him slipping further and further out of his grasp.

It becomes a routine after that. Klaus runs away every two weeks and he’s always hauled back by a policeman, or their neighbours, or just someone who recognises him from the TV. Sometimes Klaus is defiant, pulling against the man who grips at his collar. Sometimes he is crying, mumbling, unable to walk. Sometimes he is smiling, floating high above.

But each time Ben watches, silently from the top of the stairs. And each time he crawls into bed with Klaus after he thinks he’s asleep and clings onto him for dear life.

Their father stops sending people out after him and Klaus starts to just turn up every few weeks, when he’s run out of money or when it’s too cold to sleep outside. Sometimes Ben thinks about going after his brother but he never does.

When he’s home, Klaus turns to drinking their father’s whiskey through a straw.  
“It gets you drunk quicker,” he confides to Ben one night, as he heads down to dinner. Ben never asked.

He becomes less shameless in the house, rolling joints at the dinner table and smoking them on the grand staircase. He stores them in Ben’s room, between pages of books and under his pillow. Ben doesn’t say a thing.

Ben isn’t sure when Klaus starts taking the stronger stuff, but he can remember the exact day he overdoses. He rolls into Ben’s room via the window, back crashing against the pipes of the radiator. He’s sweating, a sheen of it covering his entire body like cling-film.

Ben screams until his voice is gone. Just screams and screams until Allison is there, and then Luther and then finally Mom who can save him, she can save him. Someone, probably Vanya, wraps her arms around him and holds him together with her hands.

It’s the only thing that stops him from falling apart too.

The overdose doesn’t scare Klaus. If anything, it exhilarates him, being so close to death yet in such a different capacity. His habit seems to increase and Ben feels himself back away. He doesn’t know why. Maybe its fear, maybe its disappointment. Maybe it’s the recognition of how utterly helpless he is.  
Whatever it is, it scares him.

Ben doesn’t know he could feel more useless until he dies. Suddenly, he loses any power to even physically help his brother. All he can do is watch, and talk. And talking seems useless.

They’re eighteen when Klaus leaves home. Well, Klaus is eighteen. Ben is seventeen and trapped there eternally.

“Why are you leaving?” Ben asks as Klaus hauls his bags down the staircase. 

“Too many ghosts,” Klaus replies bitterly, to which Ben just laughs.

“Do you mean me?” he questions lazily, crossing his arms across his chest. They’ve had this conversation a thousand times since Ben died. And it always goes the same way. 

“Yes. When are you going to stop haunting me?” Klaus is half-joking, but half-not.

Ben just shrugs and crosses in front of him, “Don’t blame me for being here. You’re clearly keeping me here for some reason. It’s not my fault.”

He leaves the real answer unspoken: “I’ll stop haunting you when you don’t need me here anymore.”

Ben trails behind him as he pushes out into the bitter cold, out of the academy, wishing more than anything that he could pull him back into safety.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise the next thing I write won't be as angsty!!
> 
> This had been sitting in my drafts for about a month so I thought I'd just put it out to the world before it's forgotten about forever.
> 
> The next work in this series is gonna be Vanya & Ben again and I'm excited to write it!!
> 
> Title taken from Make Me Cry by Jacob Collier. One day I'll stop using song lyrics for titles but that is not today.


End file.
